3 Ways to Protect Your Online Privacy Now

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The Federal Trade Commission recently issued its "best practices"
guidelines for businesses to protect American consumers' online
privacy. The FTC has also urged Congress to turn these guidelines
into law.

But government-led privacy protection won't happen overnight. The
FTC has targeted five privacy measures it wants to see put in
place by the end of the year, including:

1. A universal "Do-Not-Track" tool that you could
activate to prevent companies from recording your online
activities and using them to display personalized advertising.
Consumers would only have to opt-in once and companies would be
required to comply — a big improvement over the piecemeal
approaches currently available.

2. Standard disclosures for mobile apps so users know
exactly what data an app will access and how it will be used. For
instance, if an app would use your contact list, you'd know that
before you downloaded it. California has already called for this
type of disclosure. [link]

3. A new website that would identify companies
called data brokers who collect and sell your information to
advertisers. The site would make it easy to see what information
has been collected about you and who is using it.

The FTC also wants to set uniform privacy standards for big
platforms such as Google and Facebook, and establish enforceable
"industry-specific codes of conduct. But these two haven't
reached the same "actionable" stage as the first three.

It's a lot for the FTC to tackle, and a lot can happen — or not —
in nine months. Meanwhile, if you'd like to take online privacy
protection into your own hands, we've got tips for you, starting
with a "privacy lite" option — using an available Do-Not-Track
tool — to "going dark" by being fully anonymous online.

1. Install a Do-Not-Track feature in your
browser. While third parties have long offered these types of
browser plug-ins or extensions, Google recently released its own
version, "Keep My Opt-outs" for Chrome. Once it's installed, your
activities should not be tracked and used for personalized
advertising. These plug-ins send a "signal" to websites
that tell them you don't want to be tracked. However, like
joining the national "Do Not Call" list against telemarketers,
there are no guarantees that companies will honor your opt-out.

2. Use an alternative high-security browser plug-in.
Cocoon is a free browser plug-in that works
with Firefox and Internet Explorer on Windows or
Mac. With a single click, you enter a "safe browsing
zone" that prevents websites from installing tracking cookies,
shields your IP address so they don't recognize your computer and
generates anonymous email addresses to use for signing up on
websites. The free version of Cocoon itself has ads, though they
don't rely on tracking. This week, it launched a $5 a month
ad-free premium plan, Cocoon Plus.

3. The privacy-obsessed can use an
all-in-one "secret
browser" such as Tor (known as the onion router for its
layers of security). You must launch an Internet session with
Tor, avoiding your usual browser altogether. But taking this
drastic route can feel like you've landed on another planet —
video blocked, no access to social media and no Google.